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Elf Strategies
Strengths Elves have a few very interesting tricks up their sleeve. They are the only race that can build invisible roads and even cities. They can bribe enemy units with their envoys. While this ability is not unique to elves (regency can do it as well), they are best at it. They also can boost mana production by a whopping 4 points total. Their astral rangers are capable of teleporting long distances and is arguably the most mobile unit in the game, and a very strong counter to stacks of ranged units, such as ballistas. Speaking of mobility, the planar portal allows them to teleport troops straight from production site to any occupied city on the map. Elves also have two units with built-in mindshield, one with built-in invisibility and last but not least, there is the obvious strong combo of building marksmen (perhaps the best shooter in the game) and protecting them with an ethereal wall, so that melee units can't reach them. Weaknesses In spite of all these attractive features, elves suffer from a number of vulnerabilities and may find themselves overrun against an experienced human opponent. The first problem is early defense. Elves have limited options for defense at the start. If your opponent rushes you with a horde of javelineers, you're in trouble. Vigilants, while being a neat support unit for their towers, are a little too weak to help in such a case. Rangers are the weakest shooters in the game. The trick with these is to hide them in the forest, to set up an ambush. But will your opponent walk into the trap? Another early game defense for elves is the animalist, but this is only really effective against a knight rush. The lack of early defense options is made worse by a lack of production bonuses. The core high-tech elf unit is the marksman, where possible supported by an ethereal wall. The required buildings for these take uncomfortably long to get to, especially with the low production rates that elf cities tend to have. Add to that that elves lack cheap scouting units. They can't quickly grab mines and other resources all over the map, like humans and sirthe can. This makes it yet a little harder to get the economy going at the start of the game. Overcoming the weaknesses Luckily, elves can boost the production of their cities indirectly. Druids can grow forests, which is one of the best terrain types for high production. But it needs to be applied with care. A city with only forests around it will not have enough population support. A city with production 10 is no good if the population ceiling is 8k. So you need some open terrain, too. Preferably plains. By the same token, if your city has a lot of unmutable low-population terrain, such as deserts or swamp, adding forest may not do you any good. All this means that elves benefit tremendously from Gaea's Bounty, a body spell that improves terrain. If you don't want to specialize in body magic (Gaea's Bounty requires two dots), you may want to consider worshipping Yequay. Playing to your strengths With elves, perhaps even more then with other races, the key to victory is to find out what your opponent is doing and playing to counter it. The primary attack and defense plan is probably to build marksman and an ethereal wall. Body magic, already good for Gaea's Bounty, can make this very strong. Might of giants is a great boost for marksmen. Imperviousness on an ethereal wall makes it nearly indestructible. But you must be ready to adapt. Against dwarves you may be better off with bladesingers instead. The primary dwarf attack unit has high defense and a shield and is hard to shoot down. If you're up against an opponent relying on dirty magical tricks, consider building shadowdancers. Mindshield blocks many sorts of magic, including the death stare of lichs for example. If your opponent is blasting you with energy magic, consider enchantresses for their dampening. Is your opponent trying to bombard you with ballistas? Jump on top of them with a few astral rangers. As long as your opponent does not rely heavily on magical or undead units, the envoy is a very important support unit. Elves have low corruption and high gold production. Setting up a bribe of a major attack stack is tricky, but if you can pull it off it will be devastating. You can hide your envoy in a forest with help of a druid, or you could build a few illusions and leave it up for guesses who is the real envoy. Category:Elves Category:Strategy